First impressions of Prototype

There’s been a lot of buzz about Acitivision’s newest action game Prototype and I’ve really been trying to ignore as much of it as possible so I could formulate my own opinion on the game. I finally got a chance to play it last night and I’ve got quite a few things to say about it.

First and foremost, this is not a game for kids. Yeah, lots of bloody games carry the M rating, but Prototype earned it easily. The language and dialogue in the game makes extensive use of words of the the adult variety. I lost count of the number of F bombs I heard after we hit about 20. As a parent I cringed everytime I heard one because I tend to associate games with wholesome kid friendly entertainment, but as a mature gamer I was glad it was there because that’s the type of dialogue I’d expect to hear if there was a horde of infected zombies running amok in NYC and there was a shape shifting freak killing everyone. So I’m riding the fence on that topic.

Another issue I have with the dialogue is that a lot of the narration/inner thoughts done by our protagonist, Alex Mercer, seemed really dry and out of place. I mean that in the sense that I found myself thinking all too often that I really wished he’d just stop talking already. The actual voice was fine, but parts of the script were just bad.

Prototype is an interesting game to me for a lot of reasons, but one of the notable ones is that it seems to really blend a lot of other games into one experience. I felt like it was one part Crackdown/GTA, one part Spiderman, and one part Resident Evil all mixed up with a few elements from other games sprinkled on top. The crazy thing is that it works. I don’t know why, but it’s a blast to play.

I’ve already revealed a lot more about the game than I really wanted to, but it’s a solid experience so far and I’m only about an hour into the game. More to come.